Goddess of the Hunt (The Wanton Dairymaid Trilogy #1)(67)

She inhaled deeply, drinking in his scent. The scent she’d been craving for two endless days. That heady aroma of saddle leather and whiskey and night wind raked through boughs of pine. She buried her face in his neck, ran her tongue down the rigid tendon there, tasting salt and musk. Then she kissed her way back up his throat, blessing the world for the mercy of an unwashed man.This man, who had ridden hard in the dark to her, bringing jewels and the wind and the sweat of his body.

She felt him swallow and tense as she nuzzled his throat. She let her head fall back on the bed. His eyes fixed her with a wild, almost feral look.

“Lucy.” Her name tore from his chest like a threat, or a prayer. Then he fell on her, pinning her under his weight, and she realized too late what it had really been.

A warning.

He took her breath away. Literally. His chest crushed hers, flattening her aching br**sts and forcing the air from her lungs. His tongue filled her mouth, thrusting and demanding and stealing even her startled gasp. Then his hips ground against hers, working in between her legs, nestling into the cradle of her thighs, and she lost all thought of breathing. She lost all thought.

He rocked his hips against her, growling deep in his throat. Suede-soft buckskin teased over her inner thighs. Solid heat throbbed against the cleft of her legs. He rocked again, and pleasure lanced through her. Sharp, slicing joy.

Suddenly, he abandoned her mouth and raised up on one elbow. “Lucy …”—he swallowed hard between panting breaths—“You do understand what’s going to happen? Someone has explained it to you?”

Lucy laughed. “Of course. The book explained everything.”

His voice deepened. “Everything?”

Between the note of delicious danger in his voice and the way her intimate places pulsed around each syllable, she began to wonder ifThe Memoirs of a Wanton Dairymaid hadn’t been a bit vague. But regardless of the details, she knew she had a firm grasp of the basic concept. “Jeremy, this is a farm. I’ve helped Henry breed hounds for years. I understand how mating is accomplished.”

Now it was his turn to chuckle. “Yes, well—it’s a bit different between a man and a woman.”

“Because it’s done face-to-face?”

He smiled slightly. Rather wickedly, she thought. “Usually.”

Before Lucy had any chance to wrap her mind aroundthat casual statement, he continued, “It’s not the act itself that’s so different. It’s more what happens beforehand.”

“Beforehand?”

He kissed his way down her neck, his tongue dallying in the notch at the base of her throat. “I need to make you ready for me,” he murmured.

“I think …” Her voice trailed off as he lightly nipped her shoulder. “I think Iam ready.” She was completely naked, in his bed,under him. How much more ready could she be? She hooked her legs around his. “I’m ready.”

A muffled laugh against her neck was his only reply. Then he dropped lower, dragging his mouth down to her breast, and Lucy was not inclined to interrupt.

Please, she heard herself sigh. Her fingers slid into his hair, tangling and twining through the thick, black locks.

He drew her nipple into his mouth, and pleasure shot through her. His tongue circled the tight crest of flesh, flickering over the tip. Lucy arched against him, her grip tightening in his hair. He pursed his lips around her and pulled, wrenching a cry from deep in her chest. He suckled her greedily, teasing and tonguing without mercy, until she writhed under him, against him. And just when she began to believe he would never stop—and she began to believe she wouldn’t mind—he released her nipple.

Kissed his way slowly across the tender valley of her chest.

Let his tongue ascend the slope of her other breast to its taut, aching peak.

And did it all over again.

Lucy gave up. She stopped wrestling the pleasure. It lost its sharp edges and melted to liquid, and she simply let it flow. Let it swim through her in sinuous, curving currents. Felt it swirl out to her fingers and down to her toes and up to the tips of her ears. Quivered as it tumbled faster, gathered momentum, and rushed back to pool between her thighs. She dimly heard herself murmuring words. Maybe his name. Maybe hers. She had no idea.

But when he left her breast and began kissing a serpentine path down her belly, she fell silent. She drifted down with him, her awareness floating below the rippling pleasure of his kiss. He sank between her thighs, the breadth of his shoulders pushing them wide. His breath tickled against her soft curls and the tender flesh they guarded. She felt his fingers, parting her gently. And then the hot, hooking joy of his tongue.

Oh, my.

Oh my oh my oh my. The book had definitely not mentionedthis . This, she would have remembered. This, she would have underlined. His tongue flickered against her, and she cried out. Rather loudly.

He rose up on his elbow. “Lucy, hush. Someone might hear.”

She nodded, and he bent to taste her again. His tongue danced over her tender flesh, and pleasure rocked through her in a great, glittering wave. She cried out again. Louder.

She clapped a hand over her mouth. “I can’t help it,” she whispered when he rose up again. “It’s your fault, you know.” He had his fingers on her now, caressing her. He swept his thumb over that unbearable, sparkling place in tight, nefarious circles. Her head rolled back onto the pillow. “Oh, God.”